Re: Paraffin Survey Results

From:Gerard Spoelstra

Trisha

We use 1-5% fabric softener for an hour or longer after decalcification of 
bone and have no problems cutting bone. The commercial manufacturers of 
fabric softeners claim that it is the surfactant properties that allow for 
better penetration of a fabric by detergent. In the chapter on bone in
the "theory and practice of histological techniques" by Bancroft and 
Stevens  it recommends using either long processing times or double 
embedding to render bone cuttable. This suggests that it isn't the 
properties of the paraffin but enhanced paraffin infiltration that it is 
critical in obtaining high quality sections from bone. If you have bone 
that you has already been processed, taking it back to paraffin or even 
back to absolute and leaving them in the latter part of the processing 
cycle for extended periods of time should resolve the problem

Gerard Spoelstra
School of Biomedical and Veterinary Science
Medical Scientist
Murdoch University
Western Australia

At 04:08 PM 18/12/01 -0800, you wrote:
Would those who work with bone, please, tell me if you use a particular
brand for that?

I am convinced I need to find a better paraffin than I have been using.

Thanks,

Trisha Emry
U of Washington
Orthodontics Research Lab


On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, Scott Taft wrote:

 > Histonet people,
 >
 > 1. The following number of labs (who responded to my
 > survey) use this paraffin for infiltration:
 >
 > Paraplast Xtra-7
 > Surgipath INF-6
 > Tissue Prep2-6
 > Paraplast-6
 > Tissue Prep-5
 > Paraplast Plus-3
 > Richard Allen #6-2
 > Richard Allen #9-1
 > Polyfin from TBS-1
 > Fisher Ribbon Pro-1
 > Surgipath Blue Ribbon-1
 > NSH Wax (?)-1
 > BDH Gurr Paramat-1
 > Tissue Tek III-1
 > BDH Paramat Pastillated-1
 > Surgipath Formula R-1
 > Gulfwax-1
 >
 > 2. The following number of labs (who responded to my
 > survey) use this paraffin for embedding:
 >
 > Paraplast Xtra-7
 > Surgipath EMB -7
 > Tissue Prep2-7
 > Paraplast-6
 > Tissue Prep-3
 > Paraplast Plus-2
 > Richard Allen #6-2
 > Polyfin from TBS-1
 > Richard Allen #9-1
 > Fisher Ribbon Pro-1
 > Surgipath Blue Ribbon-1
 > NSH wax ???-1
 > Vip-1
 > BDH Gurr Paramat-1
 > Tissue Tek III-1
 > BDH Paramat Pastillated-1
 > Surgipath Formula R-1
 > Gulfwax-1
 > Peel AWay-1
 >
 > If you haven't heard of any of the paraffins listed
 > above, email our friends in the "land down-under". I
 > would like to know what NSH is myself.
 >
 > Thanks if you participated,
 > Scott Taft HT ASCP
 > Tucson, AZ
 >
 >
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